Wartime Conditions

The disruption of Lebanon's modernization by the war has not been
adequately measured. A social data sheet on Lebanon prepared by the
World Bank in 1983, however, illustrated some trends. Women's share of
the labor force progressed very slowly from 3.4 percent in 1960 to 19.9
percent in 1981, probably because of strong traditionalist resistance
within the family. The same data indicated a sharp decline in the
percentage of the labor force employed in agriculture, from 38 percent
in 1960 to only 11 percent in 1980. There was no corresponding rise in
industrial activity, however; the industrial labor force only increased
from 23 percent to 27 percent. Most of the labor force was still
employed in the service sector. Other indices such as energy
consumption, passenger cars per thousand population, radios and
television sets per thousand population, and newspaper circulation also
documented Lebanon's pace of modernization. What these figures did not
indicate was the disproportionate levels of modernization among various
communities and regions.

As for the impact of the war in general on public life, radical
adjustments had to be made by inhabitants of neighborhoods that were
subjected to intense fighting. The people of Beirut, in particular,
adjusted to shortages of all kinds: water, electricity, food, and fuel.
The wartime living situation started to deteriorate in the spring of
1975. During lulls in the fighting, remnants of the central government
attempted to resume services to the population, but the task was
impossible because of the harassment by militia members. The government
then resorted to rationing water and electricity. It was particularly
hampered by the sharp decline in the payment of bills by consumers.
According to one employee in the Beirut electric company, only 10
percent of all customers paid their bills. The rest either declined to
pay or simply hooked up to utility supply cables.

One of the most difficult periods in the struggle for survival among
Lebanese and Palestinians occurred during the siege of Beirut by Israel
in 1982. To pressure the PLO to surrender the Israeli army, along with
the Christian Lebanese Forces, ensured that no food or fuel entered the
city.

The war scarcely left a house or building in Beirut intact or free
from shrapnel damage. The Lebanese, however, soon adjusted to the new
situation either by living in bombed-out apartments or by fixing damaged
parts of their residence. Some displaced people from southern Lebanon
who could not afford to rent in Beirut or even in its suburbs, chose to
live in deserted apartments and hotels in areas close to the Green Line,
which separated West from East Beirut. The situation in many Palestinian
refugee camps was particularly oppressive. Some along the coastal road
had come under Israeli fire during the invasion of 1982, and others in
the Beirut area had been destroyed by Christian militias during the war
or had come under Shia attack in the mid-1980s.